by Sibel Hodge
‘I’ve got a good idea,’ I said. ‘How about I bring you in some gardening magazines, instead of reading all those horrible stories in the papers that make you worry?’
‘What stories?’
‘Like the one you mentioned yesterday. The one that you must’ve seen about Georgia Preston, who was murdered.’
‘Georgia?’ He shook his head, looking confused. ‘Who’s Georgia? I never mentioned anyone called Georgia.’ He shook his head and narrowed his eyes. ‘You’re lying.’
I opened my mouth to deny it but thought better of it. It didn’t matter, anyway. It wasn’t important. ‘Yes, I’ll bring you some in next time.’ I smiled decisively.
After a short walk we sat on our usual bench overlooking the sea. He couldn’t manage long distances anymore. As we chatted about the kids and Nadia, Chris and Ethan, he seemed really alert, remembering things we’d all got up to in the past. Even coming out with things I’d completely forgotten, like the time Chris was in a boxing match when he was about sixteen and he knocked out his opponent with the first punch. Chris was always the quiet one of our group, preferring to be on his own a lot of the time, although sometimes his quietness bordered on being broody. Unlike Nadia and Ethan and me, who were outspoken, he was shy and much more introverted than the rest of us, always a bit of a loner. He loved the boxing, and had religiously practised and sparred at a gym in Weymouth when he was growing up. He did it originally to try and lose some of his puppy fat, but I think the main thing he liked about it was he didn’t have to talk to anyone else when he was working out or fighting. He could just lose himself in the match.
It wasn’t until we were walking back to the car that Tom stopped suddenly and said, ‘Did you say something about Georgia? Did you mean Georgia Walker? I killed her, Liv.’ He dropped his head in his hands. ‘Oh, God, I killed her!’
I froze, my spine erect and stiff.
Chapter Four
I need to talk to you,’ I whispered as soon as Ethan came through the front door.
He raised his eyebrows questioningly before Anna ran out of the kitchen and threw herself into her dad’s arms.
I smiled. Or at least tried to.
‘Missed you, Shortie Pants,’ he said, his nickname for her which was woefully out of date now since she’d be taller than me soon.
‘Missed you, too, Dad.’ She pulled back and grinned happily. ‘I’ve been helping Mum make focaccia and scones for the picnic tomorrow.’
I pulled a face. ‘Yeah, well the focaccia looks more like Poppy’s just thrown up on a plate, and the scones are rock hard.’
‘They taste OK, though,’ Anna said. ‘We’ve still got quiches to do. Are you going to help us, Dad? Go on, please!’
He took his jacket off and hung it on the end of the banister. ‘I don’t even know what focaccia is, let alone know how to make it, although if it looks like puke I won’t be trying it anytime soon. I think you two are better off in there than me, but I’ll have a beer and keep you company while you work.’
‘Yeah, give your dad a bit of time to relax. He’s had a hard week.’ I ruffled Anna’s long hair, dusty now with flour. ‘Can you beat those eggs for me? We’ll be there in a minute.’
I waited for Anna to disappear back into the kitchen and slid my arms round Ethan’s neck, kissing him hard on the lips. He smelled of mint and coffee and the outdoors. His tongue parted my lips and sought mine.
‘I know you’re snogging out there! It’s gross!’ Anna shouted out.
We pulled back and laughed. That was the trouble with having a bright twelve-year-old; it was hard to keep any secrets in the house.
‘You’ll be doing it one day,’ I called back.
‘Will not. Boys are gross.’ At least I could be thankful she still thought that. It wouldn’t be long before she had boyfriends and was getting her heart broken. It didn’t bear thinking about. I was buying her a chastity belt for Christmas.
‘What’s up?’ he whispered to me.
‘It’s about Tom. And this Georgia,’ I whispered back.
He rolled his eyes. ‘Not again. I thought we went through this yesterday. It’s just the ramblings of a senile man.’
‘Yes, but he said something else today.’
His shoulders stiffened underneath my touch. ‘What did he say?’
‘He told me her surname. He said Georgia Walker. I thought he’d just been fixated on a story I found online about a girl called Georgia Preston who’d been murdered by her boyfriend, but it wasn’t her. He called her Georgia Walker and said he’d killed her again. Do you know who she is?’
Ethan pulled back. ‘I’ve never heard of any Georgia Walker and there’s no way Dad could’ve killed someone. You’ve got it wrong. Or rather, he’s got it wrong. He’s confused, like I said. Look, I’ve had a stressful week, and quite honestly, I don’t want to waste my weekend talking about some ridiculous story that can’t possibly be true.’
‘But I—’
‘Just drop it, Liv. It’s nuts. I need a drink.’ He walked off into the kitchen, loosening his tie.
But I couldn’t drop it. Not like that. Not without at least trying to find out anything else about Georgia Walker. It wasn’t like Tom had mentioned something casual and inconsequential like a set of keys he’d once lost or a fly he’d killed, and it was niggling away. Even with the Alzheimer’s it seemed very out of character for him to say something like that. So, although I was sure it was nothing, and Tom couldn’t possibly have killed anyone, I still wanted to find out why he was so obsessed with such a horrible story and where he’d heard it from.
I followed Ethan into the kitchen and went through the motions of drinking beer with him and making the food for the picnic − although I burnt one of the quiches − answering questions when I was asked, nodding in the right places, but my mind was firmly fixed on Georgia Walker. When Ethan headed upstairs for a shower and the final quiche was in the oven I went into the living room and found Anna watching a YouTube documentary on the laptop about prisoners on death row.
‘It’s terrible, Mum,’ she said sadly, eyes watering. ‘This man was accused of killing this girl who lived in his town, and he says he’s innocent.’
‘They all say they’re innocent.’
‘But what if he really is? And there was this case study I’ve been reading about where the lethal injection caused such massive pain to the patient when he was—’
‘Prisoner, not patient.’
‘OK, prisoner. And he had loads of heart attacks and it took him about forty-five minutes to actually die in excruciating agony. Don’t you remember watching The Green Mile, when they were trying to electrocute a prisoner and bits of him caught fire and stuff but it didn’t actually kill him for hours?’’
‘It wasn’t hours. That would’ve taken up the whole film, and I seem to remember it being about a lot more than just that.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Well, a long time, then. Imagine how painful that is. And what if you really did kill an innocent person?’ Anna looked horrified at that prospect. ‘I mean, what if I was wrongly convicted of murdering someone and I got the death penalty?’
‘You wouldn’t kill someone, sweetheart. You can’t even kill those disgusting ticks we find on Poppy, and they serve no purpose in life except to be horrible parasites that spread disease.’
‘Actually, everything has a purpose in our ecosystem.’
‘Yes, but not ticks. They should be banned. Like scratchy labels in clothes.’
‘Yes, but what if they were innocent, Mum?’
‘Can we talk about this another time? I really need to use the laptop. I can’t use the Internet on my phone − it’s too slow using the touch screen.’
‘But it’s just getting to a—’
‘Now, Anna!’ I said, my words coming out harsher than I intended.
She looked up
at me sharply. It wasn’t often that I lost my temper, and she could sense something was wrong.
She made a big show of pausing the film, and passed the laptop over to me in pouty silence.
I took it into the kitchen and typed in Georgia Walker’s name, along with missing person and Dorset.
I looked down the hits. There was a LinkedIn site for an Emily Walker, a Facebook page for someone called Georgia Williams, a blog about Dorset Walks and, bizarrely, a link to a page about American slavery. There was also a link to a missing persons website in Georgia, USA, a Walker County Sheriff’s Facebook Page (also in the USA – what was that about? I’d thought Google knew everything except, apparently, where Dorset was), and a plastic surgeon in Savannah which was – yes, you guessed it – in the USA!
I deleted Dorset and searched again. Maybe she wasn’t even local. This time I found a Twitter account for George Wilmington, a website for a dental surgery in London, an article about a man on death row in Georgia (don’t tell Anna) and a story about a man called John Hamilton who’d gone missing a week ago from Scotland. Nothing useful at all.
I sat back in the chair with a frustrated sigh. If Tom had heard about this woman, she must’ve been local, surely. I found British Telecom’s online directory. It asked for a surname and location so I typed in Walker and Dorset.
Too many search results. Please try again, it said.
I tried her surname and narrowed it down to Portesham. There were four Walkers but no G. I tried Dorchester next, where I hit fifteen Walkers but no G.
I gave up after trying Weymouth with the same result. She could be anywhere. Or the phone could be listed in her husband’s name. Or she could be ex-directory.
Oh, this is stupid. I was just letting my imagination run away with me. I closed down the search tab and shut the laptop as Ethan wandered in wearing faded jeans and a T-shirt, hair still damp from the shower. I felt a jolt of desire hit me. Despite the fact that his long working hours meant he didn’t have much time to exercise, he had a naturally muscular body. At forty-three, his stomach was still flat and toned.
‘I’m sorry about snapping earlier. It’s been a nightmare week.’
‘It’s OK. It’s forgotten already.’ I smiled.
He pulled me to my feet and slid his arms around my waist, nuzzling behind my ear, his lips seeking that place that made me want to melt. Maybe it was an erogenous zone. Whatever it was, I definitely appreciated him doing, oh, yes, that thing right there.
Chapter Five
The doorbell rang at 9 a.m. the next day as I was packing the food into a large cool box. Poppy barked and rushed to the front door, ready to greet the visitor with an excited wagging tail and a wet nose. She’d never make a good guard dog. She’d welcome any intruder into the house with a lick and nuzzle.
‘I’ll get it!’ Anna’s feet thundered downstairs.
From where I stood at the island I had a clear view down the hallway to the front door. Anna wore a pink sun top and tiny denim shorts.
‘Hi, Anna.’ Chris, my brother-in-law, stepped inside and shut the door. ‘How’s things?’
‘Good, thanks. We’re almost ready.’ She kissed his cheek.
He set down his own large cool box on the floor.
‘I’m just going to get my bikini on.’ Anna rushed back upstairs.
‘Hi.’ I waved.
‘Bikini?’ Chris pulled a face at me.
‘What, haven’t you got your leopard-skin Speedos?’ I arched an eyebrow.
‘Yeah. Sexy.’
‘It’s going to be another scorching day according to the weather forecast.’
‘I’m loving this weather, but I doubt very much I’ll be going in the sea. It’ll be bloody freezing.’
Ethan came in through the back door carrying some fold-up chairs. ‘All right, Chris?’
‘Yeah. Do you want a hand with anything?’ Chris asked.
‘No, I’ll just put these in the car and then load up with the cool boxes and we’re all set.’ He nudged me with his elbow, a warm smile plastered on his face. ‘Come on. You’re always running late.’
Ten minutes later we all piled into Ethan’s Range Rover Sport and drove up the road to Nadia and Lucas’s house to meet them before driving in convoy through the beautiful Dorset countryside. We headed past Corfe Castle and finally onto the picturesque sand dunes at Swanage.
It was already starting to get busy with families and couples, the promise of a rare spurt of summer weather bringing everyone out of hiding, looking pasty and anaemic. I wondered how many people on the beach would end up with sunburn and heatstroke today. We found an empty spot in between a couple of dunes and set up towels, blankets and chairs.
‘Are you coming in the sea?’ Charlotte asked Anna as she stripped off her sundress to reveal a black halter-neck bikini.
I lay on a large picnic blanket and watched the two girls walk to the water’s edge and test the temperature with their feet, shrieking and giggling as they realised it was colder than they thought.
Nadia lay next to me. ‘What a week!’ She smiled as if she didn’t have a care in the world. As if she hadn’t told me the horrible suspicions of Lucas’s affair a few days ago. She slathered a high-factor sun tan lotion on with great concentration since she had a tendency to burn. Thanks to my genes, I was dark with olive skin and could get a tan sitting in the shade. I think there was some Mediterranean blood in our family way back.
I turned onto my side, propping my head up with my hand as Lucas, Chris and Ethan stood to one side chatting about football scores or something equally yawn-inducing.
Although Ethan and Chris were brothers, they didn’t look alike at all. Ethan was more like his Dad − tall, dark, lean but broad-shouldered, with brown eyes below thick eyebrows. Chris was shorter, stockier and blond like his mum, right down to his pale eyelashes that almost looked transparent. When Chris was younger he was bordering on overweight, which he’d been very self-conscious about. As soon as he hit sixteen he started boxing and doing physical work on the building sites with Tom every day so he’d soon lost the puppy fat. Nadia was a mixture of both parents: blonde like Chris but tall with dark brown eyes like Ethan. Lucas looked as if he could be Chris’s brother instead of Ethan’s best mate. Nadia always thought Lucas looked like the actor Ewan McGregor, although I couldn’t see it myself.
I tuned out their conversation, which was now about some football player who was a right-back, whatever that was. ‘So, how are you?’ I nodded my head in Lucas’s direction. Even though I’d promised her I wouldn’t mention it again, technically, I wasn’t, even though the meaning was clear.
She glanced over at him and her smile wavered a little, although she tried really hard to hide it. ‘We’re fine.’ Her gaze flicked back to me and she lowered her voice. ‘We’re meant to be together. You can’t argue with that, can you?’ She stood up and said cheerfully, ‘Now, who wants a drink? I’ve got a huge bottle of Pimm’s in here.’ She crouched down next to one of the cool boxes. Knowing her, she probably had enough food in there to feed us all three times over.
After a couple of Pimm’s for Nadia and me, and Cokes for the boys, we all played a family game of bat and ball − although the Pimm’s had gone to our heads on an empty stomach and Nadia and I spent more time giggling and missing the ball than actually contributing to the game.
Ethan put his hands on his hips in mock annoyance. ‘What are you two like? If you can’t play then leave it to the boys.’
‘Oooh,’ I mocked back, grinning as I handed him my bat. ‘I’ve had enough, anyway. I’m going to read my book.’
‘Yeah, I’d rather sunbathe.’ Nadia swatted Lucas’s backside playfully as we walked back to our blanket.
Lucas called Charlotte and Anna out of the sea to take our places and I lay back on my towel next to Nadia, closing my eyes. The comforting sun on my skin permeated my bo
nes, relaxing me, and I was soon drifting off into that pleasant pre-sleep drowsiness.
I was woken a while later with sand being kicked on my leg and the sound of screeching. I sat up abruptly and found Anna being chased round and round by Lucas. In her hand, held high in the air, was his baseball cap.
‘Give it back!’ Lucas chuckled.
‘Nooooooo!’ She ran towards the sea as Charlotte grabbed a towel from her beach bag and wrapped it round her wet body. Her hair dripped seawater onto Nadia.
‘Ew, that’s cold!’ Nadia wiped it off, laughing, and tickled Charlotte’s stomach.
‘Stop it!’ Charlotte wriggled away, trying to be serious but erupting into fits when Nadia chased after her.
Ethan kneeled down on the edge of my towel and offered me a bottle of water. ‘Here. Don’t want you getting dehydrated after that alcohol.’
‘It was only two Pimm’s.’ I raised an eyebrow but took a long swig. He was probably right. Didn’t want the sunstroke victim to be me.
Lucas flopped onto one of the fold-up chairs with a can of cider in his hand, putting his cap back on. ‘Right, I think the girls should drive back and the men can have a few drinks. What do you think?’ he asked Ethan with a grin.
Ethan shrugged. ‘I’m not fussed about drinking on the beach. We could all go to the Kings’ Arms later when we get back, anyway. Grab some dinner there?’
‘Sounds good to me.’ Lucas took a swig of cider. ‘But I’m having a few of these. It’s not very often I actually get a weekend off so I’m going to make the most of it.’ He winked at me.
I wondered what he made the most of when he was at work. Patty? I bit back the urge to say something. I couldn’t betray my conversation with Nadia since she’d sworn me to secrecy, but still, part of me couldn’t quite believe it, part of me didn’t want to believe it and part of me was seething with anger, wanting to slap some sense into him. Give him a right mouthful about what an affair would do to his family.
